While dealing with a particularly thorny issue within the Department of Defense I stumbled across Rebecca Hersman’s “Friends and Foes: How Congress and the President Really Make Foreign Policy”. As I am always looking for new ideas on how to deal with problems this book presents a slightly different perspective on how to understand why certain issues seem to take on a life of their own, in particular ones which require the coordination and approval of many diverse entities. In this case she introduces the concept of the issue cluster. While easy to view the concept as simply the commonplace result of groups of individuals sharing similar interests, her meaning has a much deeper connotation with the potential for far greater impact when viewed through her lens.
Many advocacy groups can emerge on any particular issue. An issue cluster emerges only when there are cross organizational linkages that bind a specific issue together as well. It’s the linkages that give the issue cluster its life rather than the loose collection of like minded individuals of an interest group. An issue is smaller is scope than an interest and therefore easier to bind together those of not only a like mind but a willingness to do something about it. That something can be either advocacy or the reverse.
What’s intriguing to me is that the cluster forms between organizations that typically have existing relationships and share multiple issues and interests at any given time. For the cluster to form the linkages between layers, and only as related to the specific issue, must form to give the cluster life. For instance, I have four or five reasons to call the State Department on any given day. Five days a week I call or email on one issue in particular and then for that issue I always contact the same individual. And whereas several individuals might posses or need the information I am looking for and giving out, I tend to call the person who shares my view of the world. I am not looking to debate or maneuver for the information I am passing along or seeking. Therefore the cluster once it forms, naturally seeks the path of least resistance. Hersman applies her observations to the complex and high level world of foreign policy. But it’s clear that the same sort of informal network will form within any bureaucracy.
Herman provides three very specific examples from her experience where she observed this complex phenomenon and demonstrates how it was the informal influence wielded primarily through the emergence of issue clusters that made the difference.
“Friends and Foes”, is not a complex book on foreign policy relations. It is therefore easily accessible to non-political science majors. It does read a bit like a formal academic paper and could have used a bit more stylistic flare to enhance some of what I’m sure were highly charged and colorful debates with Washington insiders. Unfortunately the names of most of those insiders were withheld. One can assume because Ms. Hersman still has aspirations for a career in foreign policy rather than journalism.
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